Quadcopter motor twitching. What next? | BAD MOTOR OR ESC TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE

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0:00 - Props off for safety!
0:47 - What's the symptom of a bad ESC or motor?
1:27 - Why the motor and ESC but not the FC?
2:26 - A "dragging" motor is not necessarily bad
3:41 - Start with a physical inspection of the motor
7:35 - You need to have this tool to protect your equipment!
8:44 - Starting to discuss ESC startup beeps but then...
• How To Find The Short-... - How to find the short circuit in your quadcopter.
11:19 - Motor construction, and how it relates to how motors fail
13:44 - Additional tests to see if motor or ESC is bad
• Is Your ESC Broken | H... - How to tell if your ESC is bad.
14:37 - Next step: swap the motor with a good motor and see if it spins
15:33 - How to interpret ESC startup beeps for troubleshooting
21:22 - How to tell and what to do if your FC is damaged
• How To Fix A Bad Motor... - How to use resource remapping to work around a bad motor output.
26:22 - Can you really build a whole quadcopter with no soldering and not computer?
• Anybody can build an F... - Watch Ken Heron build a quadcopter with NO SOLDERING

[@JoshuaBardwell]

Get your BACK TO THE BANDO t-shirt from FPV Crate: bit.ly/3OZTsiA

[@BB-jq6ek]

that's funny I hit your Amazon link and bought the smoke stopper and 2 minutes later that one blew up on you... should I return it and wait for a better version?

[@Nam_flies_drones]

love when joshua from the future comes in, hes so wise

[@BrysonWooden]

I'm literally dealing with this exact issue with my quad right now, thank you for making this video!

[@ShaneGraham057]

I think JB has a bit of the psychic going on in the community. I too am dealing with similar issues (but further down the rabbit hole) :p

[@h3rtz]

same here. spooky!

[@jamesburton8348]

haha same. my motor went yesterday

[@jeramboo8511]

This happen so many times, I have an issue and the next day Bardwell made a video. You gotta love him❤️

[@tonyvladi9940]

From one genius in youtube if esc for 1 motor if died on your 4 in 1 ,you can make 3in1 and 1 , buy separate esc control and sold it direct con power of battery line, and with testing in betaflight in pc(motor testing) find a control signal cable for motor what you need. I repaired my emax hawk pro with this idea.

[@yoavallon]

That’s like putting a carb on top of you’re fuel injector and saying you made it work…

[@sufysprojects2689]

JC? PbF?

[@MrSabram07]

?

[@Wheelieking619]

Thinking outside the box! Bravo chief!

[@Voyajer.]

@@yoavallon one of the few times where the saying if it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid is appropriate.

[@TempeiB]

I've seen why your smoke stopper doesn't work; 17:25 the ground wire broke. At 19:15 you can see it better.

[@maxtrixbass]

Dang that was helpful. Its hard to get such clear, concise information in the world of electronics for those of us without electronics degrees. Thank you.

[@metaldirtnskin]

Turns out LED racewires, as well as looking cool, let you see the motor beeps clearly which can be handy for this kind of troubleshooting 😁

[@Joshuah2012]

The number of posts where the person’s motor isn’t spinning or is twitching with PROPS ON INDOORS on the multirotor subreddit the last few days has been insanely high. Now I can link this video along with telling them they’re kinda dumb for arming inside with props on with a known issue on top of it

[@user-rh1ym6se3h]

MY SMOKE STOPPER IS FRIED TOO!!!! I WENT TO HELL AND BACK, UNTIL I WATCHED THIS VIDEO!!! Now all works, as planned....WOW! Thx Bardwell!!!

[@cajah1000]

Just want to add in you can still get your motor tones for all motors. Had a ground short on my brand new AIO and all motors still toned so be careful because if you keep the unit armed it could send that stinky smoke from the motor or blown fet. Still researching my recent and years of these issues but recently watched this one. It will probably lead to me changing the fet or spare part pile.Thanks JB for all your time researching and assisting all the hobbiest.

[@dhbfpv]

Holy timing, another incredible wealth of knowledge shared. You are a treasure sir, if I had friends I would share every video you make.

[@eatyourvegfpv]

Hey JB, I'm not sure if you remember or not but about a week ago you showed a video of mine with a motor issue, where one motor would run for a few seconds than 'reset' in a perfectly rhythmic way... I replaced the ESC and that cured it 👍 Just wanted to let you know as it's relevant to this video.

[@SunriseWaterMedia]

I've told you before, and I'll say it again: you have the best username! 😂🥦👍

[@eatyourvegfpv]

@@SunriseWaterMedia Haha! I do remember! And thank you 😉💚

[@user-by2yb9wj8j]

Hi, can u just help mi a bit? How can I replace esc? I am begginer, and have such problems as u)

[@neuroticsdubstep]

Solid video. You went over everything really clearly. One thing I’ve rarely run into is having just the first 3 beeps and missing the last 2 FC beeps intermittently. 75% of the time it works and flies fine. Sometimes I don’t get the beeps. I think it’s a delay on my FC initializing and sending throttle signal in time. Only had it happen with a particular FC/ESC combo

[@RichMoore-tweakin7376]

Josh from the past, you should have done this video 5 years ago. In the past 4 years I figured out how to troubleshoot but this video makes it very easy. You've got some amazing points.. thank you so much for all your hard work

[@pi.actual]

Always keep your guard up. I recently had a motor on a little 3D printed Cub that I built and with the prop on I noticed it seemed to be turning backwards. So with the throttle fully closed I came up with this brain fart idea that maybe I needed to reverse the throttle channel on the transmitter. Well the second I did that it instantly went to full throttle (still in the same reversed direction) and the entire nose of my model virtually exploded into a million pieces right next to me. Luckily I was uninjured but after cleaning up the mess I noticed the motor no longer worked. The wiring looked okay but it just wouldn't turn. So I bought a new motor and guess what - same thing. I bought a new ESC and still no joy. The throttle channel was in Normal (not reversed) but when trying to calibrate the ESC I noticed it was working backwards. In order to get it to calibrate I had to start with throttle lever fully closed then move it to fully open and then it worked but the throttle channel was operating reversed even though it was in normal mode. I finally had to again hot switch from normal to reverse (this time with no prop) to get everything back in sync. It had me scratching my head for about a week. Motto is - BE CAREFUL

[@wearemany73]

Another brilliant video JB, these bread and butter clips are required veiwing for new FPV pilots and old FPV pilots alike. 😊

[@nickbrown7700]

There is always a point with his amazing videos that I get lost and it's exhausting to keep up. This hobby is wonderful, but taxing at times. Thanks Joshua!

[@pwillie2288]

I just went through these steps yesterday. Glad to see i checked everything how the master does it. In my case. One motor would idle fine (props off) and rev to about 20% throttle then cut out. Props on, the motor would begin to idle then twitch out and stop. Turned out damaged/broken wire to motor and I suspect this limited the current that could be delivered.

[@3DIYOriginal]

Awesome Video !! Love the way, you explain things on your KZbin channel. There is a lot of usefull information (data) on your channel. I'm from Spain (Valencia), here is 03:32 in the morning & I'm watching your video. Can't stop watching your videos. Hello to everyone !!! 😎 THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR KNOWLEDGE WITH US!! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻😎

[@metalx9499]

Turns out my twitching problem in flight was simply a de-soldered capacitor. The negative side had broken lose from the ESC negative Vbat pad. In flight the broken leg of the capacitor would tap the vbat pad and release its energy causing the twitch. Hope this helps someone. Cheers Barry

[@jonnmedds]

1 min and 17 sec into the video and you've solved the problem as to whether it's my motor or ESC. Thank you, all I need is a new motor

[@TechReview2000]

Thank you for tips. I crashed my very large 10kg drone the other day, the motors are twitching. These tips will help a lot

[@rodrigodiniz13]

Joshua, the black wire from the XT60 of the smoke stopper got broken in the middle of the demonstration.

[@hultaelit]

Yeah, can see it at 19:16 before the multimeter covers it up

[@JoshuaBardwell]

Wow! That's great to know. I can fix that easily!

[@Super_Mario_Fpv]

The second half of this video is just pure education. And pretty important knowledge.

[@Uname8294]

LOL where was this video a week ago when I had this exact problem? Thank goodness for the multicopter subreddit for pointing me in the right direction.

[@pexagaming5669]

19:17 haha you ground wire on funky board thingy to XT60 is just disconnected. Lol. Thanks for the vids btw.

[@basmajianmiscellany113]

JB, great video. Simple troubleshooting with explanation along the way. I've always wondered how to check those hard to turn motors. Way to have Joshua from the future show the humanity and confusion troubleshooting sometimes brings. Nicely done.

[@SmirkInvestigator]

wow that actually filled me with joy and surprise to know that the motor makes those beeps. Always thought the sound stage was a little wide to be a speaker in the FC.

[@brixzereg]

Dude your vifly has a wire disconnected you can see one wire from the board to the xt60 has come loose. That's why it stopped working.

[@MrSabram07]

I have that same DeWalt screwdriver. That thing rocks, the speed of the rotation increases with the twist of a wrist pretty clever I love mine

[@bohdanshcherbak6303]

From the first moment i've seen the smoke stopper with the negative cable disconnected I was begging you to see it

[@bebenoeg5188]

Thanks for the knowledge, I really appreciate it. Hopefully it can continue to provide useful lessons for all of us. Hope you are always healthy, thank you JB, have a great day.. 😊👍

[@arycave]

Yes. And when you buy motors for a new build - buy one or two extras from the same batch. And, all connectors suck, especially placed on arms.

[@altermannfliegt3927]

Very good explanation. I wish I would have seen it two years ago when I started with brushless motors and ESC s. I have to learn this lesson by myself. I don't need it before with nitro motors. ;-)

[@rgross989]

Great Videos! Please keep more trouble shooting videos. So much is learned even outside the topic.

[@jacobreezyfpv6287]

Thank you so much JB I can finally just send people to this video. This is the most common question I get. haven to go back and forth with questions to fix the problem no more. Lol 🤣

[@MCsCreations]

Thanks a bunch for all the tips, Joshua! 😊 Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

[@FerralVideo]

I've always called the ESC beeps the "Superman" tones. They just evoke the mental image of a superhero's appearance theme for some reason.

[@Joe-bs9dj]

Thanks Joshua

[@Dosclic98FPV]

Fried an ESC on Sunday and it took one of the motor into the grave. Gonna do some rapairs this weekend. RIP P.S. Seems you did not mentioned to check the continuity between the positive and the single pads of your ESC, in my case I saw there was a short on the positive and one of the pads so if I would have connected another motor to test I would have killed another motor.

[@Dosclic98FPV]

@@mikebergman1817 Yeah, I am still today seeing the cost of the repair lol. It was a Mamba 40Amps not soft mounted and died in full acceleration so maybe all the factors combined took to this point. I also have to mention that it died from the side I took the first and last hard hit back in January.

[@ruvyfpv4398]

So I fried a motor months ago ordered a few motors and installed the motor and plugged it in and no smoke then I spun the motor up and the motor started smoking again on the new one:/ so I’m assuming it’s a fried ESC? It’s a Diatone Roma F5 Any help would be awesome!

[@JoshuaBardwell]

That test is in the ESC troubleshooting video linked in the description.

[@Dosclic98FPV]

@@ruvyfpv4398 Yeah, check for continuity but that is the ESC almost for sure

[@bitterrootfpv2207]

@@ruvyfpv4398 sorry dude. But your assumptions are correct.

[@jfsaraceno9265]

Troubleshooting videos are high value and underappreciated

[@MADFlyFpv]

Coincidentally I am dealing with the same problem. thank you very much JB

[@NAQFPV]

Can't wait to see the music video made with the 2:17 worship and2:22 tick tick tick. Awesome video as well

[@veram.2460]

in my case stator was unglued from the base and moved about 15 degrees forward and backward. Thar caused motor lost sync in air and quad fall from sky. Works prefectly on the ground - takeoff - crash. Well. I replaced ESC - guess - didnt worked. then at the next turn stator just ripped wires off, shorted it and burned ESC.

[@williamlosch]

looks like @ 17:19 the xt60 ground wire is loose on the first Vifly shortsaver!

[@tourisew7513]

Great video, I just have a bad motor right at the instant, it spinned about 10 seconds and than completely stopped.

[@spionfpv2428]

Super useful video.. My newest drone just did something like this, so now it's time to troubleshoot. Perfect timing for this video :D Many thanks from Denmark.

[@maplefpv]

that vifly didnt die, the gnd wire just gave up lol @17:25

[@marcinsamotyja]

This is the 4th time I have a problem and less than 24 later your newest video helps me

[@CarbonGlassMan]

The Vfly short saver IS the best. Thanks for recommending it.

[@sunsetpark_fpv]

AWESOME troubleshooting video AND "BACK TO THE BANDO" T shirt!

[@coilockerfpv]

Trippy. I just went through this same diagnostic process about an hour ago. It was a bad motor 🤓

[@John_Doe_6996]

If the 4-1 esc is not working, the motors tab in BF, or BlHeli will show which esc(s) is bad, motor will show 100% error rate. To check that it isn’t the motor, rewire a different motor to that esc, and check again. I recently had 1 out of 4 esc(s) fail, after a hard smack into wet grass.

[@JoshuaBardwell]

Error of 100% means the FC cannot talk to the ESC. It has no bearing on whether the motor works. You can connect FC to ESC with no motor at all and it will read 0%.

[@NikG603FPV]

Thanks for this video. Just bought a smoke stopper too.

[@DarrenAllatt]

4:05 looks like there may be a short or potential for one between the bolt and windings under the motor.

[@jeffs3119]

Thanks so much I’m having similar issues. Great timing.

[@TechnicallyTom]

Those motor screws look too long. There’s maybe a millimeter or two of clearance. Ideally the motor screws would be flush with the top of the mount holes. Although there seemed to be some clearance, the inbound motor screws might be touching the wires. The threads could cut through and cause a short. Watch the part of the video where you zoom in on the motor.

[@FireN2k9]

Next video "Motor repair/rewinding" Would be a waste to throw that mechanically fine motor in the trash. :)

[@lemonsquareFPV]

Agreed! Even though it takes 10 minutes to completely redo a motor I don’t think most people bother, among my flying buddies, it’s just me and one other person that rewind our motors. We are the FPV nerds among the group :p I like how I can change/customize the KV and I try to be wise with my use of resources on this planet. That being said I am lazy and don’t fix them right away if I have a spare on hand, I usually collect a bunch (4-6 usually) and then I do them all at once.

[@traviscook5144]

As soon as you said Ken Herron I was immediately turned off. Ive found that guys personality exceedingly annoying. Just my personal opinion though and I’m only some guy on the Internet so… With that being said this is the video we all needed so great job 🤙🏻

[@princesfpvdrones]

Joshua from the Future, saves the day again!

[@jejefpv]

Something that often occures when testing with a smoke stopper is that it detects a short once or twice in a row and then it works as expected, it is related to the capacitor(s) which are getting charged. Another topic that would be very interesting : these last months I got into too many bad gyros (much more than before). Do you know an effective way to troubleshoot a gyro on the bench ? I had bad gyros that induced "grinding noise" from the motors, even with no props, that was easy. But I had other bad gyros which were terrible on one or 2 axis, but only a flight with BlackBox could highlight the issue. Thanks Joshua.

[@ludofevrier5593]

Ça c est un tournevis électrique américain 👌🏼😂

[@evilynz]

you are great, i enjoyed watching this and solved my problem thanks a lot!

[@michaelmuir4039]

You have saved so many of is thousands of dollars Not to mention some serious time to problem solve

[@Andyblalock]

mine every once in awhile will spin up.. the rest of the time it doesn’t and sounds like it restarts by doing the final two beeps again..

[@pandrews01]

Extremely helpful video. Thank you.

[@cajah1000]

Thanks!

[@AlexLebed]

I'm glad I have learned something today.

[@kurtzFPV]

2:23 Joshua's Tarantino impression from Reservoir Dogs.

[@flyv3rse753]

Wow JB I literally just got this problem, I was out flying and when I switched to the Skyeliner, exactly the same kwad you are showing I had a problem with one of the motors, I don't know yet what it is but I noticed the color in that one is more yellowish as the one in your video. Thank you for posting, I have to figure it out and I should order a new motor. Question, would this motors be affected if flying the quad with a 5s lipo?

[@Airoflyer_fpv]

Happen to me 3 times with a skyliner spun into air at full speed ,had to jump In. A bush

[@Sircrashalot1993]

Such good and accurate information!

[@erixmix]

I've had pads pull off of a Vifly, check those output wires

[@gameboys248]

I dont know if you realised, but your XT60 negative wire on the circuit breaker disconnected

[@__dummy__7523]

Excellent!

[@petrsovis]

Hello Joshua, can you help me ? I just bought Darwin FPV Baby Ape, when I connected receiver (ELRS EP2) and when I connected the battery (it was 2S and drone was 2-3S) it smoked. ESC's circuit (FET) smoked. I measured motor - it has much lower impedance than other 3 and when I spin it (with motor screw driver) I get 1/3 of voltage of others. Could motor cause ESC to burn ? The whole setup is stock from DarwinFPV (1104 $3 cheap motors). Could motor be bad from factory ? Or ESC ? FC+Esc's not cheap on those copters. THANKS ! Love your channel. Petr

[@skyweaver3199]

Hell of a prop tool there buddy

[@thfpv4974]

Funny I just asked you a question about this thanks joshua

[@user-rv5on4ki3e]

thank you so much!!!

[@holgenn]

Check the xt 60 plug from the bad vifly. I had the same issue and found out, that one side was off...

[@MCsCreations]

Hey Joshua, which is your electric screwdriver? Seems pretty good! I've been thinking about getting the one from Xiaomi, but I'm not sure yet.

[@plumpitiful5856]

I think the DeWalt gyroscopic is best.

[@EdwardChew]

I have a case where the ESC is burning up the rear left motor 1. so it started twitching 2. i replaced the motor 3. less than 1 fight, it flipped itself, same rear left motor become twitchy So I put both motors to an independant esc later, they twitch. indicating motor is faulty now On the bench, if i switch the front motor to the rear, it spins up normally. that is really weird.

[@maydayfpv]

listen, sir...those are MR. Thirty connectors :P sorry, couldn't resist, lol

[@LoversFPV]

hey JB,ive found the vicky short saver to be abit too sensitive - plug the quad into your bench top power supply as that will act the same as the short saver but will also tell you how much current your drawing etc. i replaced a motor just recently and then used the short saver for first power on and it was tripping on both 1 and 2 amp, plugged it in to power supply and it was drawing just over 2 amp but wasn't anything wrong with it it was just the short saver being so sensitive

[@JoshuaBardwell]

Bench top power supply in my experience doesn't cut off as quickly though. It depends on the quality of your PSU I guess.

[@yourcuteguy9737]

super informative

[@2toeninja]

I'm going through this problem right now with my skyliner and it's driving me crazy. Actually I've had this problem for about 6 months and I've just been dealing with it

[@edwright8279]

Just solder on a good motor to see results

[@UnfairFrame653]

i did enjoy the video

[@dingbatfpv]

Dead smokestopper? No. It's a "troubleshooting opportunity"

[@savvydudesrein9068]

Hello Joshua, a Happy New Year! Thanks for the really helpful videos, it has really teached me alot on my fpv growth. Anyway, i have a problem with my cinewhoop i hope you can help. The motor #2 on my cinewhoop (Cine Reptile 149 with iFlight Succex Mini F4 stack) it twitches and gets warm fast (not hot), it beeps and sings the regular esc tune when i plug a battery in it. The motor in question spins normally if i spin in by hand with no mechanical resistance. Same goes when it's connected to the esc, there's no electromagnetic resistance as well. But when i plug and arm the motors, this particular motor (#2) twitches then spins. And when i apply throttle power, it stops spinning mid-power then makes a new tune by itself. Then the entire thing stops spinning and then makes that esc tune again with the motor #2 making that tune second or half behind the others... What could be the problem with it, sir?

[@sricharan7287]

Jb is a musician

[@upnorthFPVandEUC]

Awesome info thanks!

[@jimouris]

Awesome video. I have a similar situation with a tinywhoop. I swapped the "faulty" motor and it works fine when I plug it into a different location. So that either points to a short circuit or a bad ESC. How do you go from there?

[@petrokemikal]

Super annoyed.. built my first quad and ended up soldering the main batt terminals backwards and fried the fc, waited for a new fc to come, finished off the build and now 2 of the motors wont spin up properly.. My luck ive either damaged motors or also fried the esc... Sooo frustrating and a big waste of money.. I tried everything reflashing the esc, reflashing the fc, did several motor spinup tests in betaflight and still the back 2 motors randomly start and stop working.. Dont know where to look now !!

[@TheEviling]

17:32 missed opportunity to change T-shirt to "Back to the Bando 2" :)

[@guschtlweidinger9251]

Hey Joshua. First of all, thanks for the great video! I have a problem that kinda fits the video but not exactly. I conected my newly build drone to betaflight an as wanted to test the motors, they didn't spin. When i out the motor throttle up to 1068 they all start twitching. As i out the throttle higher all of the motors stop again. What could cause this problem? Thanks in advance!

[@jeremiahthomas2669]

Good stuff

[@Az-xi6jt]

I use speedybee f7 v3. 1 my motor does not beep.even i change good motor same thing happen.what caused that???.

[@Scibble_FPV]

So I have a Darwin Baby Ape v2 and I crashed it in a tree and when it crashed the wires got ripped out of the motor, so I bought a new motor, and soldered it on correctly, before I plugged in a battery I checked it with a multimeter to make sure the nodes where not touching (wich non were) then I powered it on. When I armed it the motor that I had replaced started twitching along with the led. I did the test to see if I had a blown mosfet, but I suggested that I didn’t. When I boot up the drone I can feel all the beeps on the motor. I removed the motor and then tried arming it, and the led flickered still, so it is probably not the motor. What do you think I should do?

[@highlandsvideo]

What would it mean when the first 3 beeps always happen twice before the last two?

[@pablomoreno1999]

what does it mean if out of the last 2 beeps i only get one?? both motors vibrate, and this happens to me 95% of the time, the other 5% it starts everything up normally, driving me nuts